Word on the Street: Lawmakers offer glimpse at work behind casting votes

Sunday

Mar 16, 2014 at 4:02 PM

Chris Kaergard and Nick Vlahosof the Journal Star

Each year for the last three when your shorter columnist has visited Washington, D.C., to interview members of the central Illinois delegation, there’s been a moment very early on that’s served as a reminder of just how complex some of the decisions lawmakers make end up being.

For all that issues get reduced to black and white in cable television shout-fests, there’s a substantial amount of nuance to every piece of final legislation members of Congress vote on, many shades of gray to every issue they consider.

Neither Rep. Cheri Bustos nor Rep. Aaron Schock has been a lockstep legislator, and as we talked on Wednesday on Capitol Hill, each of them gave us a window into how they teach themselves about issues before deciding how to vote.

Bustos, an East Moline Democrat, is a former journalist. As we talked about matters including how to fund infrastructure projects, she described her thought process as being similar to how she worked on covering complicated issues for her old newspaper.

“You gather as much information as you can ... you talk to people on the ground doing this, and then you weigh all of that and you try to figure out how you can come up with the best answer possible for our country,” she said, acknowledging the multiplicity of different views on almost any subject.

Schock, the Peoria Republican, has seen changes over his three terms in Congress, and says it’s easier now to learn about issues than during his first term. At that point, he said, there were fewer hearings on big issues, less opportunity to try to make changes to legislation to make it more palatable.

During that term, from 2009-10, he said matters including the Affordable Care Act, cap-and-trade legislation, even the stimulus package arrived for votes without much opportunity to review the legislation.

“If you can’t even read the bill, how do you educate yourself or your constituents,” he asked rhetorically.

For all the sturm und drang about the farm bill that, at long last, was approved this year, debating amendments long into the night “provides more opportunity to read the bill, more debate — bipartisan debate — and more feedback from your constituents before you have to cast the vote,” Schock said.

There are also committee hearings. And while sometimes it may seem that the higher-profile ones some lawmakers are trying to grandstand for a C-SPAN audience or get a sound bite onto the evening news, Schock said they’re also useful for getting deep into the weeds on an issue like President Barack Obama’s proposed budget.

Two key Cabinet officials — Jack Lew and Kathleen Sebelius — testified in the last several weeks on the budget, and he said their hours of testimony helped.

“I can read the president’s budget,” Schock said. “But having the treasury secretary there for two hours, having the (Health and Human Services) secretary there today for two hours, I learn a lot more that way being able to do Q-and-A with her.” (C.K.)

Questionable parody

Back in the pre-Internet days, funnyman-turned-auteur Steve Martin recorded a vinyl album — remember those? — called “Comedy Is Not Pretty!”

A gander at the parody Twitter account for Peoria Mayor Jim Ardis might inspire a sequel. Call it “Comedy Not Done Well Is Not Pretty,” minus the gratuitous exclamation point.

Within the past few weeks, Ardis became the most recent recipient of a sometimes-dubious cyberspace honor. Thanks to parody Twitter accounts set up by God-knows-who, the famous and not-quite-as-famous can find themselves the font and the butt of humor, 140 characters at a time.

Some fake Twitter accounts are well done. Your swarthier columnist recommends ones that spoof NBC hockey announcer Mike “Doc” Emrick and former President Richard Nixon, among others. Funny stuff, more often than not.

But whoever set up the Ardis parody account isn’t exactly Jimmy Fallon.

The first few tweets from the renegade Ardis account were innocent enough — photos of the Peoria riverfront, the mayor making a speech, sitting at his desk, etc. A caption for the latter stated: “Peoria you don’t got the answers.” Far from side-splitting, but there might be some comedic potential.

But the tweets devolved from there.

As anybody who knows us can tell you, we’re not prudes. But the phony Ardis’ subsequent tweets featured repetitive references to drugs and sex combined with profuse profanity. After a few, they became funny only because they were stupid, not because of genuine humor.

That’s not to say Ardis isn’t ripe for parody. Any public official of note probably is, from President Barack Obama to the mayor of Peoria. Ardis probably would get a kick out of a fake Twitter account that truly was parody.

But someone must not have cared for the anonymous tweeter’s scatology. The words “parody account” were added to its description last week, just to make sure nobody thought it was legit.

Now that the disclaimer is obvious. pseudo-Ardis should attempt to be funny. Or, to paraphrase the title of a Steve Martin movie, he might come off simply as a jerk. (N.V.)

Chris Kaergard covers politics and government and can be reached at ckaergard@pjstar.com or 686-3135. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisKaergard. Nick Vlahos covers City Hall and can be reached at nvlahos@pjstar.com or 686-3285. Follow him on Twitter @VlahosNick.

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